There is a big problem in corporate America today. According to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace, only 30% of employees consider themselves “engaged” at work. As a result, corporations are embarked on multi-million dollar employee engagement programs in an effort to improve these numbers. Unfortunately, they are barking up the wrong tree.  Employee engagement programs aren’t the solution to poor engagement.

While there is a high correlation between employee engagement survey results and business performance, there is no proof that the former causes the latter.

And that’s because it doesn’t. Engagement, as measured by employee surveys, does not cause success. Engagement is, at best, asymptom of success. Employees who are succeeding and feeling good about their contributions to your company are naturally more likely to:

• Be proud to work for your company
• Be happy to come to work each day
• Feel valued

Which leads to high engagement scores. Employees who don’t feel like they are getting anywhere and are not happy with their own performance are not going to rate any of these highly.

So if engagement scores go up with improved results, why not just focus on real results? And why not focus on making employees more successful so that:

• Projects are finished on time and on budget
• Employees overcome significant challenges
• Customer satisfaction and loyalty strong
• Productivity is high or improving
• Top talent sticks around

Not only is the pursuit of employee engagement barking up the wrong tree, it is worse than that. Here are ten reasons why pursuing employee engagement is destructive

1. Employee engagement programs are huge, internally focused distractions that create no value for which customers are willing to pay. Imagine adding an “engagement surcharge” to every invoice. How would your customers feel about that? (You’d get them engaged!)
2. Engagement surveys disempower employees by giving them 101 reasons (a.k.a. survey questions) why they are helpless victims in a hopeless environment.
3. Opinions and feelings collected by survey provide no insight into the observable behaviors that must be changed. This leaves management with data but no clue how to make real improvements.
4. The fear of declining survey results encourages managers to manage by consensus, which is a tremendous time-waster in itself.
5. A desire to keep everyone happy leads to innocuous decisions that annoy no one instead of well-informed, smart decisions that might ruffle some feathers.
6. A desire to keep everyone engaged leads to insincere requests for input that will never be used.
7. Employees are not fooled by insincere requests for input so these shams erode trust.
8. Managers eager to improve engagement numbers waste money on pep fests and pizza. Or worse, on undeserved promotions and raises.
9. Engagement creates a sense of entitlement among employees who suddenly believe the company owes them a best friend at work, an inspirational manager, a great office, or some other mom-and-apple-pie nicety that will make the workplace perfect.
10. Last, but not least by a long shot, engagement programs invest millions of dollars trying, in a round about manner, to do what the performance management system is already supposed to be doing: ensuring everyone is in a job where they can succeed, if not excel. In particular, this includes getting rid of bad managers.

So here is what you should do with all that money, time, and energy you are currently devoting, or are about to devote, to an employee engagement program.  Concentrate instead on helping your employees be effective and more successful. Let their happiness, eagerness, and energy follow of its own accord. There are three areas for you to focus on:

• Ensure clarity of purpose – Employees must know what they are trying to accomplish, why, how well, and with what priorities and constraints.
• Ensure clarity of roles – Talent and responsibilities must be well-matched so employees feel challenged but with a fair shot at excellence.
• Ensure clarity of process – Employees must understand how the game is played, know where things stand, know how they can best contribute, believe decision-makers are informed and fair, and believe they can influence the process if things are going awry.

Focus on creating clarity and you can develop effective, committed employees who:

• Go the extra mile, which leads to projects finished on time and on budget.
• Knock down walls to overcome significant challenges, which in turn increases their pride, confidence, and appetite for another challenge.
• Are determined to help customers succeed, which creates loyal, trusting customers who make more purchases.
• Care about results, productivity, and continuous improvement.
• Stick around, reducing attrition and the expenses and problems associated with trying to replace top talent.

I’d like to think these same employees would refuse to fill out surveys asking about the inspirational qualities of their managers or the existence of best friends at work. These are the people who get things done, scorn the pizza parties, and care little about the size of their offices. You need more of them. What you don’t need is employees spending their time thinking and talking about whether management is doing everything right.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com on November 1st, 2015.